Horsham (/ˈhɔːrʃəm/) is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England.

Jeremy Quin had served as Conservative Member of Parliament for Horsham since 2015, succeeding Francis Maude, who held the seat from 1997 but retired at the 2015 general election.

[4] By the eighteenth century the borough corporation had ceased to have much role in administering the town, instead serving primarily as the means by which the main landowners, the Dukes of Norfolk, controlled the election of MPs.

Dealing with such rotten boroughs was part of the motivation behind the Reform Act 1832, which reduced Horsham's representation from two to one MPs and made elections less open to abuse.

[12] The River Arun rising from ghylls in the St Leonard's Forest area, to the east of Horsham, cuts through the south of the town then makes its way through Broadbridge Heath.

The middle The name Carfax is likely of Norman origin – a corruption of 'Quatre Voies' (four ways) or 'Carrefour', a place where four roads meet.

This street consists of houses erected in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th century and is lined with ancient London Plane trees.

A short walk along the banks of the Arun in a south-easterly direction is Chesworth Farm, an area of open public access.

Swan Walk, a shopping centre which opened in 1976 and was enclosed with a glass roof in 1989 with the addition of Springfield Court.

Horsham has developed beyond the original boundaries to incorporate some of the smaller hamlets which now form part of the outer districts.

A station opened in the area in 1907, originally called Rusper Road Crossing halt, but later renamed Littlehaven.

[17] South-west of the town, the Needles estate was laid out from c. 1955, with a mixture of privately owned and council-built houses and bungalows.

[18] Roffey is north east of the centre of Horsham and as a hamlet dates back to at least the 13th century, with taxation records of 1296 showing 18 liable people in the area.

Horsham's town centre has a reputation for small business[25] and also provides multiple retail chain stores.

West Sussex County Council has partially occupied parkside after Royal Sun Alliance vacated the building.

[29] Until 2015 the Swiss-based multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis, formerly Ciba-Geigy before a 1996 merger, was a major employer in the town, but the plant is now closed and the site scheduled for redevelopment.

[36][37] At the west end of the town centre formerly stood a kinetic water sculpture called the 'Rising Universe', colloquially known as 'The Shelley Fountain'.

It was designed by Angela Conner, and erected to commemorate the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley who was born at Field Place in Broadbridge Heath, near Warnham, two miles west from Horsham centre.

Bus services are provided by Metrobus, Stagecoach South, and Compass Travel to destinations such as Brighton, Crawley, Gatwick Airport, Dorking, Guildford, Worthing, Pulborough, Burgess Hill, Storrington and Haywards Heath.

The railway station is run by Southern, and is on the Arun Valley Line from Chichester to Crawley, Gatwick Airport and London Victoria.

Trains on this line start from Bognor Regis and Portsmouth & Southsea or Southampton Central and divide or attach at Horsham.

Cyclists, pedestrians, and horseriders can reach Guildford and Shoreham via the Downs Link, a long-distance bridleway and cycle route which follows the now disused Horsham-Guildford, and Horsham-Shoreham railway lines[45] and passes through Southwater, just to the south of Horsham.

[46] Horsham is home to the following well known independent schools: Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC South and ITV Meridian.

They are nicknamed 'The YMs', and play their home games at Gorings Mead in the Iron Bridge part of Horsham.

Initially, the team played on farmland adjacent to the Warnham Park Estate, but from 1930 until 1968, they were settled at Horsham Cricket Club.

[57] The Registry of births, deaths, and marriages is located in Park House, North Street in central Horsham.

At the eastern side is The Pavilions in the Park leisure centre with a gym and a 25m swimming pool run by a private company for Horsham District Council.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had the fictitious Openshaw family, in the Sherlock Holmes story The Five Orange Pips, residing in the town.

The programme mentioned that: In 2007, a Reader's Digest poll put Horsham as the 25th best place in mainland Britain to bring up a family.

It also has the honour of being presented with the Royal Horticultural Society's Bloomin' Wild award, which reflected the theme for year's national judging.